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Chrome on Android has a very useful setting to force zoom. Go to Settings - Accessibility - Force Enable Zoom - Profit :) Not sure if Safari has something simi

Chrome on Android has a very useful setting to force zoom. Go to Settings - Accessibility - Force Enable Zoom - Profit :) Not sure if Safari has something similar though.

0942v8653 11y ago
Here's a bookmarklet you can use to enable zoom: javascript:m=document.querySelector('meta%5Bname=viewport%5D');m.content=m.content.replace(/.*(width=%5B%5E,%5D+).*/,%22$1,maximum-scale=10,minimum-scale=0.1,user-scalable=1%22); I found it on HN a while ago, I wish i knew where. To add it bookmark another page then go into bookmarks edit mode and change the URL to that.
- el_duderino 11y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9414599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9414599
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
pgrimes 11y ago
But should expect our audience to do extra work to make something usable?
- cbaleanu 11y ago
  Absolutely not. Disabling default zoom behavior is like hijacking the scroll bar - bad, ugly and puts users off. Also horrible is the tri state or undeterminate checkbox. All of the above are very trendy pieces of 'css and html codes' commonly found on popular DIY web dev sites. *edit: spelling
  - err4nt 11y ago
    I do a lot of responsive design, and I turn zooming off So I CAN give you a proper responsive design that you can read and interact with on a small touchscreen. Why on earth would you prefer to pan around a desktop site designed for a big screen with a tiny cursor when you've got a tiny screen and a massive cursor (fingertip)?
    - wlesieutre 11y ago
      How about giving me a proper responsive design, and then still letting me zoom in if your design sucks for me and the text is too small? Not everyone has the same eyesight or the same size phone.
      - err4nt 11y ago
        If zooming is better than having a properly designed layout for the device you are using, how did all the app developers get it wrong? Nearly every app on my phone is formatted for a small touchscreen, and not simply a desktop-sized program on a desktop shrunk to fit my phone screen (allowing me to zoom in and push a tiny cursor around). Form follows function, and so an app designed for a mobile device would look different than an app designed for a desktop computer. The hardware and capabilities are very different. The great part is, with recent support in CSS we can build one site and target desktop users and mobile users with entirely different hardware, and give them a unified experience and layout that's tailored to their device. When they use the desktop it's the same website, fit to their screen and ready to be used with a mouse and keyboard. When it's from a mobile device - all of the same information and actions are still there, just presented in a way that's intuitive and natural to users of a mobile device. If you've ever used a mobile simulator on a computer you'll know how awkward it is to emulate the most natural and smooth fingertip gestures with a mouse. It's clunky! Well trying to pretend you're a desktop with a mouse when youve got a tiny screen and a big mouse (fingertip) is just as awkward and useless. With zooming enabled, every tap you make takes 300ms longer to register because it's listening to see if that tap is a tap or going to be part of a zooming gesture. I design my stuff to look good well beyond normal tolerances for screen sizes, and trust me - I am not your enemy here. I do what I do to give the best experience and if zooming ended with an easier-to-use experience then for sure I would enable it. I do a lot of other things to make it easy for mobile users too: - use tel inputs for numerical entry (mobile users get a keypad instead of a keyboard) - user email inputs for emails and turn off autocapitlize (mobile users get a keyboard with an '@' symbol) - use retina graphics, or render imagery in code for retina and pixel-dense displays - every layout I create works from 300px-1500px, and some of the more important elements in the layout I may get working from 200px-2000px to be certain they will work everywhere. - I use a massive wish-list of fonts that includes great defaults for OS X, Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS - I use the least amount of JavaScript that makes sense to accomplish what I need to do (I hate sites that constantly crash the tab on mobile) - I add offline and web-app tags according to the project to help users who may add the site to home screen have the best experience (not all sites are built for web app mod) - I also add in special icons just for mobile users so if they bookmark the site they will have a nice icon as well - I disable text-selection or pointer-events for items that may be errantly tapped on, or to help you be able to more easily select text you are trying to select on mobile. Text selection, copy, and paste on mobile is a magnitude more difficult than for a desktop user So I'm not just disabling it because somebody told me to, or showed me that's how it's done. I work hard and develop, and use these devices, and building a desktop site you can pan around does not provide as good an experience as a properly designed responsive site. I'm a mobile user too, trust me when I say I fight for your experience to be the best there is!
hesselink 11y ago
Firefox on Android has it as well: Settings -> Display -> Always enable zoom.

Chrome on Android has a very useful setting to force zoom. Go to Settings - Accessibility - Force Enable Zoom - Profit :) Not sure if Safari has something similar though.

0942v8653 11y ago

Here's a bookmarklet you can use to enable zoom: javascript:m=document.querySelector('meta%5Bname=viewport%5D');m.content=m.content.replace(/.*(width=%5B%5E,%5D+).*/,%22$1,maximum-scale=10,minimum-scale=0.1,user-scalable=1%22); I found it on HN a while ago, I wish i knew where. To add it bookmark another page then go into bookmarks edit mode and change the URL to that.

el_duderino 11y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9414599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9414599
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

pgrimes 11y ago

But should expect our audience to do extra work to make something usable?

cbaleanu 11y ago
Absolutely not. Disabling default zoom behavior is like hijacking the scroll bar - bad, ugly and puts users off. Also horrible is the tri state or undeterminate checkbox. All of the above are very trendy pieces of 'css and html codes' commonly found on popular DIY web dev sites. *edit: spelling
- err4nt 11y ago
  I do a lot of responsive design, and I turn zooming off So I CAN give you a proper responsive design that you can read and interact with on a small touchscreen. Why on earth would you prefer to pan around a desktop site designed for a big screen with a tiny cursor when you've got a tiny screen and a massive cursor (fingertip)?
  - wlesieutre 11y ago
    How about giving me a proper responsive design, and then still letting me zoom in if your design sucks for me and the text is too small? Not everyone has the same eyesight or the same size phone.
    - err4nt 11y ago
      If zooming is better than having a properly designed layout for the device you are using, how did all the app developers get it wrong? Nearly every app on my phone is formatted for a small touchscreen, and not simply a desktop-sized program on a desktop shrunk to fit my phone screen (allowing me to zoom in and push a tiny cursor around). Form follows function, and so an app designed for a mobile device would look different than an app designed for a desktop computer. The hardware and capabilities are very different. The great part is, with recent support in CSS we can build one site and target desktop users and mobile users with entirely different hardware, and give them a unified experience and layout that's tailored to their device. When they use the desktop it's the same website, fit to their screen and ready to be used with a mouse and keyboard. When it's from a mobile device - all of the same information and actions are still there, just presented in a way that's intuitive and natural to users of a mobile device. If you've ever used a mobile simulator on a computer you'll know how awkward it is to emulate the most natural and smooth fingertip gestures with a mouse. It's clunky! Well trying to pretend you're a desktop with a mouse when youve got a tiny screen and a big mouse (fingertip) is just as awkward and useless. With zooming enabled, every tap you make takes 300ms longer to register because it's listening to see if that tap is a tap or going to be part of a zooming gesture. I design my stuff to look good well beyond normal tolerances for screen sizes, and trust me - I am not your enemy here. I do what I do to give the best experience and if zooming ended with an easier-to-use experience then for sure I would enable it. I do a lot of other things to make it easy for mobile users too: - use tel inputs for numerical entry (mobile users get a keypad instead of a keyboard) - user email inputs for emails and turn off autocapitlize (mobile users get a keyboard with an '@' symbol) - use retina graphics, or render imagery in code for retina and pixel-dense displays - every layout I create works from 300px-1500px, and some of the more important elements in the layout I may get working from 200px-2000px to be certain they will work everywhere. - I use a massive wish-list of fonts that includes great defaults for OS X, Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS - I use the least amount of JavaScript that makes sense to accomplish what I need to do (I hate sites that constantly crash the tab on mobile) - I add offline and web-app tags according to the project to help users who may add the site to home screen have the best experience (not all sites are built for web app mod) - I also add in special icons just for mobile users so if they bookmark the site they will have a nice icon as well - I disable text-selection or pointer-events for items that may be errantly tapped on, or to help you be able to more easily select text you are trying to select on mobile. Text selection, copy, and paste on mobile is a magnitude more difficult than for a desktop user So I'm not just disabling it because somebody told me to, or showed me that's how it's done. I work hard and develop, and use these devices, and building a desktop site you can pan around does not provide as good an experience as a properly designed responsive site. I'm a mobile user too, trust me when I say I fight for your experience to be the best there is!

hesselink 11y ago

Firefox on Android has it as well: Settings -> Display -> Always enable zoom.